Fletch blinked. “What about ’em?”
“You haven’t paid any.”
“Nonsense. Of course I pay taxes.”
“Not nonsense, Mister Fletcher.” Fabens used the ash tray. “Look at it our way. Your parents lived in the state of Washington, neither of them well-to-do nor from well-to-do families.”
“They were nice people.”
“I’m sure. Nice, yes. Rich, no. Yet here you are, living in a villa in Cagna, Italy, the Mediterranean sparkling through your windows, driving a Porsche … unemployed.”
“I retired young.”
“In your lifetime, you have paid almost no federal taxes.”
“I had expenses.”
“You haven’t even filed a return. Ever.”
“I have a very slow accountant.”
“I should think he would be slow,” continued Fabens, “seeing you have money in Rio, in the Bahamas, here in Italy, probably in Switzerland.…”
“I also have a very big sense of insecurity,” Fletch said.
“I should think you would have,” Fabens said. “Under the circumstances.”
“All right. I haven’t paid my taxes. I’ll pay my taxes, pay the penalties—but after I phone in the story that you guys are bugging the convention of the American Journalism Alliance.”
“It’s the not filing the tax reports that’s the crime, Mister Fletcher. Punishable by jail sentences.”
“So what? Let ’em catch me.”
Eggers was sitting in a chair, hands behind his head, staring at Fletch.
“Peek-a-boo,” Fabens said. “We have caught you.”
“Bull. I can outrun you two tubs anytime.”
“Mister Fletcher, do you want to know why you haven’t filed any tax returns?”
“Why haven’t I filed any tax returns?”
“Because you can’t say where the money came from.”
“I found it at the foot of my bed one morning.”
Eggers laughed, turned his head to Fabens, and said, “Maybe he did.”
“You should have reported it,” said Fabens.
“I’ll report it.”
“You have never earned more than a reporter’s salary—about the price of that Porsche in your driveway—in any one year… legally.”
“Who reports gambling earnings?”
“Where did you get the money? Over two million dollars, possibly three, maybe more.”
“I went scuba diving off the Bahamas and found a Spanish galleon loaded with trading stamps.”
“Crime on top of crime.” Fabens put his cigar stub in the ash tray. “Ten, twenty, thirty years in prison.”
“Maybe by the time you get out,” laughed Eggers, “the girl next door will be divorced.”
“Oh, Gordon,” Fabens said. “We forgot to tell Mister Irwin Maurice Fletcher that in one of my pockets I have his T.W.A. ticket to Hendricks, Virginia. In my other pocket I have his extradition papers.”
Eggers slapped his kidney. “And I, Richard, have a warm pair of Italian handcuffs.”
Fletch sat down.
“Gee, guys, these are my friends. You’re asking me to bug my friends.”
Fabens said, “I thought a good journalist didn’t have any friends.”
Fletch muttered, “Just other journalists.”
Eggers said, “You don’t have a choice, Fletcher.”
“Damn.” Fletch was turning the baggage locker key over in his hands. “I thought you C.I.A. guys stopped all this: domestic spying, bugging journalists.…”
“Who’s spying?” said Eggers.
“You’ve got us all wrong,” said Fabens. “This is simply a public relations effort. We’re permitted to do public relations. All we want are a few friends in the American press.”
“You never know,” said Eggers. “If we know what some of their personal problems are, we might even be able to help them out.”
“All we want is to be friendly,” said Fabens. “Especially do we want to be friendly with Walter March. You know him?”
“Publisher. March Newspapers. I used to work for him.”
“That’s right. A very powerful man. I don’t suppose you happen to know what goes on in his bedroom?”
“Christ,” said Fletch. “He must be over seventy.”
“So what,” said Eggers. “I’ve been reading a book.…”
“Walter March,” repeated Fabens. “We wish to make good friends with Walter March.”
“So I do this thing for you, and what then?” Fletch asked. “Then I go to jail?”
“No, no. Then your tax problems disappear as if by magic. They fall in the Potomac River, never to surface again.”
“How?”
“We take care of it,” answered Eggers.
“Can I have that in writing?”
“No.”
“Can I have anything in writing?”
“No.”
Fabens put the Trans World Airlines ticket folder on the coffee table.
“Genoa, London, Washington, Hendricks, Virginia. Your plane leaves at four o’clock.”
Fletch looked at his sunburned arm.
“I need a shower.”
Eggers laughed. “Putting on a pair of pants wouldn’t hurt any, either.”
Fabens said, “I take it you choose to go home without handcuffs?”
Fletch said, “Does Pruella the pig pucker her pussy when she poops in the woods?”
Two
“So you’re going to bug the entire American press establishment? Just because someone asked you to?”
Gibbs’ voice was barely audible. Fletch had had a better connection when he had called from London.
Across the National Airport waiting room a brass quartet was beginning to play “America.”
Fletch pushed the brown suitcase he had taken from Locker Number 719 out of the telephone booth with his foot and slammed the door.
“Fletch?”
“Hello? I was closing the door.”
“Are you in Washington now?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have a nice flight?”
“No.”
“Sorry to hear that. Why not?”
“Sat next to a Methodist minister.”
“What’s wrong with sitting next to a Methodist minister?”
“Are you kidding? The closer to heaven we got, the smugger he got.”
